Can you Move like a Minibeast?

This fun, kids, literacy activity is from our Minibeast Activity Box and is inspired by the brilliant children’s book Mad about Minibeasts by Giles Andreae . In the book there are so many fantastic adverbs to describe the way the minibeasts move; scuttle, march, slither ect. and this activity is a great to help your children understand the meaning behind those words and cement them into their own vocabulary.

Set Up

For this kid’s literacy activity I used the spinner board and paper clip from our Minibeast Activity Box and a pencil to use as the centre of the spinner and that’s it!

The girls were very intrigued when they saw the minibeast game board and wanted to instantly know how to play. First we looked at all the insects around the board and read the captions underneath. Then it was time to get spinning! I initially set up the spinner for them by placing the paperclip on the centre of the board and then placed the end of the pencil through the paper clip onto the centre of the board. I would hold the pencil for them whilst they flicked the paper clip to make it spin. Then they got moving. We talked about the meaning of the different verbs and how we thought the insects moved.

They were both desperate for their next turn and both wanted to use the “spinner” by themselves. After they had already moved like a particular minibeast once, the next time we then changed the adverb to “could they now wiggle slowly, quickly, nervously, happily etc.” We then began to use the verbs and adverbs from the game in our every day life. “Can we scuttle quickly to the kitchen for dinner?” This game is not only great fun but also a great way of increasing children’s vocabulary!